Steve Daines on Free Trade

Worked for 6 years bringing U.S. consumer products to China

An ad from the Walsh campaign accuses Daines of "double-speak," boasting about job creation while helping to outsource American jobs overseas: "Daines worked for years in China, helping an American company build factories there, at the same time Daines'
company was firing thousands of American workers here."

Independently, both of those claims are more or less accurate. But we think the clear implication is that one caused the other, and that Daines was responsible for it. On both of those scores,
clear evidence is lacking.

Daines, then 29, worked for P&G in China from 1991 to 1997 to help expand the company bringing U.S. consumer products into China. And in 1993, P&G announced a plan to "streamline" its operations by closing 30 plants and
eliminating 13,000 jobs worldwide--including four plants and 4,000 jobs in the U.S. But did expansion in China come at the expense of American jobs? Walsh campaign officials claim it did. [We rule that there's no support] that Daines was responsible.

The Bank may enter into up to $25 billion worth of contracts of reinsurance or co-finance.

Sierra Club reason for conditionally voting NO (from previous bill S.819):Sen. Shaheen's bill S.824
reauthorizes the Ex-Im Bank without undermining Obama's Climate Action Plan. The Sierra Club supports the bill because it makes both financial and environmental sense for the US and all of its taxpayer-backed financial institutions--including Ex-Im--to stop investing in dirty and dangerous fossil fuels like coal.

Cato Institute reason for voting YES to kill the bill:The Ex-Im Bank's reauthorization buffs contend that Ex-Im fills a void left by private sector lenders unwilling to provide financing for certain transactions. Ex-Im's critics [say that] by effectively superseding risk-based decision-making with the choices of a handful of bureaucrats pursuing political objectives, Ex-Im risks taxpayer dollars. It turns out that for nearly every Ex-Im financing authorization that might advance the fortunes of a single US company, there is at least one US industry whose firms are put at a competitive disadvantage. These are the unseen consequences of Ex-Im's mission.